So, I've decided to do some visual responses to the stories, starting with characters. Not all of the characters are described in depth, but most of them are, and from the tones of each story it's quite easy to build up a picture in my mind.
Log of quotes about description and costume etc.:
1 The Bloody Chamber
The Heroine
- satin nightdress
- supple as a garment of heavy water
- teasingly caressed me, egregrious, insinuating, nudging between my thighs
- young girl's pointed breasts and shoulders
- a fire opal the size of a pigeon's egg set in a complicated circle of dark antique gold
- mouse-coloured hair that still bore the kinks of the plaits from which it had so recently been freed
- bony hips
- my nervous pianist's fingers
- Poiret dress
- sinuous shift of white muslin tied with a silk string under the breasts
- my breasts showed through the flimsy stuff
- a choker of rubies, two inches wide, like an extraordinarily precious slit throat
- frail child
- flashing crimson jewels around her throat, bright as arterial blood
- twice-darned underwear, faded gingham, serge skirts, hand-me-downs
- pale face
- the muscles in my neck stuck out like thin wire
- the fire opal that glimmered like a gypsy's magic ball
- drew my furs about me, a wrap of white and black, broad stripes of ermine and sable, with a collar from which my head rose like the calyx of a wildflower
- sticklike limbs
- negligee of antique lace
- thin white face, with its promise of debauchery only a connoisseur could detect
- old serge skirt and flannel blouse
- listless sheaves of brown hair
- neck like the stem of a young plant
The Husband
- rasp of beard
- though he was a big man, he moved as softly as if his shoes had soles of velvet
- strange, heavy, waxen face was not lined by experience
- experience seemed to have washed it perfectly smooth
- heavy eyelids folded over eyes that always disturbed me by their absolute absence of light
- that face... like a mask
- heavy, fleshy composure
- sometimes he seemed to me like a lily
- strange, ominous calm
- like one of those cobra-headed, funereal lilies whose white sheaths are curled out of a flesh as thick and tensely yielding to the touch as vellum
- monocle lodged in his left eye
- a huge man, an enormous man
- his eyes, dark and motionless as those eyes the ancient Egyptians painted upon their sarcophogi, fixed upon me
- white, broad face
- cigar
- lips, that always looked so strangely red and naked between the black fringes of his beard, now curved a little
- old, monocled lecher
- smoking jacket
- vicuna breast
- massive, irredeemable bulk of my husband
- gold watch from his waistcoat
- well-manicured fingers
- curling mane
- silken bristle of his beard
The Mother
- half-joyous, half sorrowful emotions of a woman on her wedding day
- black silk, with the dull, prismatic sheen of oil on water
- eagle-featured, indomitable mother
- gladly, scandalously, defiantly beggared herself for love
- grown magnificently eccentric in hardship
- a rider, her black skirts tucked up around her waist
- crazy, magnificent horsewoman in widow's weeds
- you never saw such a wild thing as my mother
- her hair was her white mane
- her black lisle legs exposed to the thigh
- one hand on the reins of the rearing horse while the other clasped my father's service revolver
- as if she had been Medusa
The Courtship of Mr Lyon
The Tiger's Bride
Puss-in-Boots
The Erl-King
The Snow Child
The Lady of the House of Love
The Werewolf
The Company of Wolves
Wolf-Alice
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